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Forgiveness

Day 152 – Yesterday I waited (and waited, and waited, and waited) in an fairly empty gym after dropoff for volleyball in a locale that seems like Timbuktu. I noted the little pockets of people, clumps dotting the big new gymnasium at Lake Nona High: Warrior teens here, Brave teens there, a few adults looping in and out of groups. I was invisible (except perhaps to the balls, which is, in itself the point of the story). I read and studied. I danced in the back hallway to videos of FTD skirt class. I pondered what it was that I needed in my life to move forward, so that my scattered activities, like these clumps of people, disattached, yet connected intrinsically to the moment, would have relevance, wholeness, infiniteness–or not–and still be just as important.

Forgiveness is needed (of myself, of my friends, of my family, of others) so that my heart can open to such experiences. With nothing but time and space, my heart and mind opens, and that opening affects me greatly. Like yoga practice, it makes me feel better, more receptive, more grounded, etc. While I’m busy thinking of a million thing I could be doing, I don’t always remember the privilege and opportunity of what I am doing (gratitude), but more often than not I get upset with myself.

Today’s reading was on service–the formal and ritual way we extend our love to those we will never see. Our first ritual is on the mat, as Rolf shows us, to end our suffering. He extends this: “I am a drop in the ocean, and as the content of my drop changes, the ocean changes, and as the ocean changes, I change. Dedicating my practice to the end of suffering connects to the underlying reality of the work that I do on myself. It connects me to teh fact there is no separation between me and all living things. As I etend love to myself, in the form of my practice, I am extending love to all beings.”